Francis Wolff

born in 1908 in Germany

died on 8/3/1971 in New York City, NY, United States

Francis Wolff

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Francis Wolff (1907 or 1908 in Berlin, Germany March 8, 1971, in New York City, United States) was a record company executive, photographer and record producer.[1]

Career

After a career as a commercial photographer in Germany, Wolff emigrated to the United States in 1939. That same year in New York his childhood friend Alfred Lion had co-founded Blue Note Records (with sleeping partner Max Margulis, who soon dropped out of any involvement in the company), and Wolff joined Lion in running the company. During Lion's war service, Wolff worked for Milt Gabler at the Commodore Music Store, and together they maintained the company's catalogue until Lion was discharged.

Until Lion retired in 1967, Wolff concentrated on the financial affairs of the business and only supervised occasional recording sessions produced during his visits to Europe to see surviving members of his family. For the last four years of his life, when Blue Note was no longer an independent label, Wolff shared production responsibilities with pianist and arranger Duke Pearson.

Francis Wolff took photographs during the recordings sessions, usually shot during session rehearsals, throughout the period of Lion's involvement in Blue Note Records. They were used on publicity material and LP album sleeves, and have continued to be used in CD reissue booklets. The two collections of photographs listed below contain entirely separate selections of the many thousands Wolff shot over a thirty-year period.

Bibliography

  • Michael Cuscuna, Charlie Lourie & Oscar Schnider (1995), The Blue Note Years: The Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff, Rizzoli, ISBN 0-8478-1912-4
  • Michael Cuscuna, Charlie Lourie & Oscar Schnider (2000), Blue Note: The Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff, Universe (Rizzoli), ISBN 0-7893-0493-7

References and notes

External links

This page was last modified 19.03.2014 22:31:28

This article uses material from the article Francis Wolff from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.